I run at night because the air feels quiet. My steps don’t mean as much when no one is watching. The sounds of my breath can’t be heard as I’m drifting across the gravel of the street, crushing small rocks under my feet. My muscles don’t feel weighed down at night; I feel free.

I’m running down the quiet streets of the small town I live in. Eastwood, CA. My iPod is attached to the waistband of my black running shorts, but I’m not listening to it; I usually do. I’m holding a water bottle in my left hand, and I can feel the water vibrate through my fingertips as it swishes around the edges like a tornado before crashing onto the sides like a tsunami. Halfway through the run, my mind starts to wander from the rhythm of my breathing matching with the time of my steps to that twisted night two years ago when I finally stopped living my mom’s dreams for her. That night I was supposed to be packing because in just a few short hours I’d be on a plane with my mom off to Paris because she thought my “modeling career would take off in Europe.” I’ve never been interested in modeling. My mom made me, and that pushed me even farther away from it.

“Lexi, are you done packing?” my mom asks as she walks into my room. She’s still perfectly dressed. Not a wrinkle in sight on her black pencil skirt. She’s always working. It’s either answering phone calls as my manager for my modeling career during dinner or emails as a lawyer to her clients in the middle of the night.

I haven’t packed yet. I’ve been writing in a journal my grandma gave me with my lucky pencil. Most people would think that a four leaf clover or $2 dollar bill is lucky, but I have this pencil. She also gave me a watch that has been passed down through our family. I cherish all the gifts my grandma gave me because she’s always been a mother to me when my mom wasn’t.

“Whats wrong? Why haven’t you finished packing? This could be you on the cover after this trip to Paris,” she says as she holds up an issue of Harpers Bazaar Magazine.

“I just do-” I’m cut off before I’m able to finish. She walks over to my closet and starts picking different pieces of my clothing to pack.

“Mom, maybe we shouldn’t go. I don’t want to be a model.” I say as fast I can before I talk myself out of not telling her.

“Oh! And this blouse is absolutely fabulous on you. You’ll look magical!” It’s like she didn’t even hear me. Her phone starts to ring before I can even try to say anything else. “Just finish packing quickly, Lexi. We’ll talk about this later. I need to take this. It’s important,” She says before walking out of my room.

That day changed my family dynamics forever. We’ve never been the perfect family. And my parents have never been the perfect parents. My mom is a lawyer plus a self-titled manager for my modeling career and my dad is a movie producer, so they are very serious about their jobs. Our family nights were few and far between. Both of them always had to stay late at the office. That was their excuse for forgetting to make me dinner or pick me up from ballet class when I was younger. So after telling my mom I didn’t want to be a model, she was very upset. My father took my side in this ordeal which pushed my mom to the edge. He told her that she shouldn’t push me into modeling because I’m never going to be happy as a model. And so ends our family as I know it.

I used to run during the day when I was still living in my unconventional house with my unconventional parents. I was starting to feel claustrophobic in Eastwood with a population of 5,000. And that might sound ironic, but everyone is so close you wouldn’t believe how fast gossip travels. Especially when the neighbors hear you’re having family troubles. And I thought that when the Mayor’s daughter was cheating on her boyfriend was rich gossip, but having family troubles is like striking gold in the gossip circle. This twisted puzzle of my life is unfathomable to someone in Eastwood: where smiles are forever. Small towns are known for happy families who are living the “American Dream” with a white picket fence, not for divorced parents and unhappy teenagers like me.

I’m in a trance as I continue running; my body is moving without my mind telling it what to do. I’m pulled back to reality when I hear someone’s footsteps coming from behind me. A runner. A teenage boy running at night. He’s tall with long skinny legs wearing bright, red running shorts and a blue tank top. But what I notice that’s even weirder are the red, framed sunglasses perched on the top of his head.

“Hey, runner girl,” mystery runner boy says a little breathless. His brown hair is matted with sweat sticking to his forehead. “I didn’t know anyone else ran at night. You know small town, not many people.”

I nod not really knowing what to say. He continues to run with me. His fanny pack is bouncing on his hips as he moves to run backwards so he could face me.


“I’m Nathan Hutchins, but you can call me Nate or Hutch or Weirdo.”

“Weirdo?” I finally have to ask.

“People call me that at school. It’s one of their better nicknames. So what’s your story?”

“My story?”

“Yeah, you know running at night. It seems like people who run at night have a story. I’ll go first then. I’ve always been the one who never fit in. People think I’m awkward. And once you’re an outsider in a small town, you can never go back. And to make things even worse my dad died when I was 12, about five years ago. And for those five years I have gotten sympathy stares wherever I go. So that’s why I run at night. No sympathy stares.”

“So what’s with the sunglasses?” I ask.

“I don’t really know. I always wear them. I guess it’s just a weird habit hence my nickname Weirdo. I also carry Chapstick while I run as well as hand sanitizer. I know it sounds weird, but I swear it makes your hands sweat less.”

“So anyways, enough about me. What’s your story? I know you have one.” Nate is quite persistent. And I don’t know if I should tell him “My Story.”

“Well, I run at night because no one watches me. And my family is ruined because of me. Because I didn’t want to be a model, and now we’re the Number One story in the gossip circle of Eastwood.”

He just listens to me. To my story. It’s like he knew I needed someone who would listen to me. We keep running together, side by side, until he stops next to his house.

“This is me. You want to come in? We have some hot chocolate!s Oh, and raspberry cookies. The best in town. Well, actually, they’re not homemade but they’re still the best.”

“No, thanks, Nate. I’m just going to go home and sleep actually. It’s getting late.”

“Well maybe I’ll see you on the running grind tomorrow night,” he calls from his front door as I’m walking back down the street to my house. “Us outsiders need to stick together!”
Now I finally have something interesting to write about in my journal: another outsider in the “perfect” town of Eastwood. And I do hope that I’ll see him tomorrow because I did need a running parter.